Cellfactor: Psychokinetic Wars is a multiplayer blast fest similar to the Unreal Tournament series of games (and many others). Offering three character classes to play, multiple levels and even some customization options this multiplayer game is a welcome addition to the downloadable arcade game library. The question of the moment on everyone’s mind, or it should be is, Can a 10 dollar game compete with the best games from the premiere developers out there? In short not directly but it is a damn fun game which offers a worthwhile distraction.

Cellfactor: Psychokinetic Wars controls just like any first person shooter but there is a slight difference in how it plays with each class. These classes include Guardian which is a powerful tank and duel wields two weapons, the Blackop who is a fast run and gun and teleport unit and Bishop the Psi powered fast and nimble unit who is one of the most rewarding units to blaze away with.

As you play the single player challenges you unlock items to customize your character such as helmets and other armor. While it seems the customization has zero actual effect on how much damage you can take it does allow for some tweaking to make your character your own.

The single player challenges range from killing X number of the enemy in Y number of minutes, capture the flag, capture the flag without having your flag captured, hack the enemy base, defend your base, kill enemies with all the weapons on the map and more. Plenty of challenges for each class and they are actually very enjoyable to play them even though the Bots have some of the dumbest artificial intelligence. The AI is so bad you can easily run up the CTF score by running the exact same route over and over again.

Multiplayer gaming is where Cellfactor: Psychokinetic Wars lives and you must like to play against friends and others across Xbox Live or Playstation Network to have any fun at all. The game is certainly more fun to play with friends but even just against the various communities it is fun just remember to mute other players.

With a heavy dose of industrial science fiction locals, some interesting character design and solidly designed levels you have a nice looking game. With a mostly stable frame rate, one level I had a drop in frame rate which was a bit of a pain but it did not last long, the game flies in a smooth transition as player’s battle each other. While the graphics will not compete with Unreal Tournament I can honestly say there is no other download only title for our consoles which can compete with the game because there is not one, until maybe we see a Unreal Tournament game released as a download only title.

Audio wise Cellfactor: Psychokinetic Wars does the job right, but I would have preferred the voice work of the announcer who does the now standard voice callouts of “Triple Kill!” and “Arena Master” to have had more of a variety. Weapon, environmental and other audio sounds are done well enough to make the game enjoyable on the ears.

While the single player challenges are literally something you can finish in a couple of hours tops, the multiplayer game is where the value is at. Fast and furious gaming with some nice level design, different classes, customization of your character and to top it off we have not seen a game like this for download on our consoles makes this games value high. Grab some friends and blast each other online and enjoy it because this is a rare treat on our consoles.

Every gamer who is anyone that plays multiplayer first person shooters has sat down with Epic Games Unreal Tournament and lost countless hours becoming God Like while blasting friends and foes over the internet. While we have a few games of similar note and even the latest Unreal Tournament to play we have not seen any real competition or value priced game until now. If you like multiplayer deathmatch gaming than look no further and buy this game.